Globalisation and Polycentrism

Conscious Practitioner Week 5

Dr Digdem Sezen digdem.sezen@uca.ac.uk

Learning Objectives

Define globalisation
Explain how globalisation shapes game production and distribution.
Understand polycentrism and shifting cultural power in the industry.
Analyse examples of games from global and local perspectives.

by Selcuk Erdem

Unfair game

Get three blank pieces of paper and a thick, dark, felt-tipped pen if possible

Blank paper pieces for mock up on a beige | Premium Photo

You have three minutes to draw a map of UK

(or a map of your home country)

You have three more minutes to draw a map of the continent (Europe)

r the continent where your home country is located

You have three minutes to draw a map of the World

How was your experience?
Which parts was the most difficult?
Which one was the easiest for you?
What could you say about your drawing?

Mistakes vary with…

Nationality
Personal history

Drawing the Netherlands

Dutch students render their country in a very characteristic shape.
They are never surprised to see that their maps match each other great in detail

Jaap Van Ginneken

They are surprised to learn that their foreign classmates do not have the faintest idea about even the approximate shape of their host country. A simple blob without any characteristic shape at all.

Drawing Europe

The map of Europe posed few problems to most European students
Students from British Isles often had a less articulate view of the “Continent”
Non-Scandinavian students draw Norway, Sweden, and Finland as three near-identical protrusions in the north.
Northern students detailed those southern countries where they had been on a holiday
Even though naturally most of these exercises took place after the fall of Berlin wall and the Soviet Empire, all Western European students persistently in drawing Europe as if it did not extend beyond Berlin, where as Eastern European students usually made it three or four times as deep up to including the Ural mountains
Students from Latin America accentuated Iberian Peninsula, and students from Catholic countries accentuated Italy. Sometimes they reversed the characteristic boot shape

A picture containing diagram

Description automatically generated

Drawn by a student from Holland

Diagram

Description automatically generated

Drawn by a student from Japan

Drawn by a student from Brazil

Drawn by a student from the US

Drawn by a student from Palestine

Drawn by a student from Indonesia

The mechanisms in all these cases are basically threefold

Centrality
Volume
Articulation

Basic features in common

Inflating developed countries of North American and Western European countries
Deflating developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America (except for the country that student came from)
Identifying former and present “great powers”: ex-USSR, the USA
Generally, Ireland and the UK were identified, as Australia and New Zealand were
Students from former colonizing countries and formerly colonized countries often gave more weight to each other than to others

how to draw map of world | Open this world map template JPEG and save it to your disk. | World map outline, World map template, Cool world map

Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from an unprecedented distance of over 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that day's Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System.

A screenshot of a cell phone

Description automatically generated

gezegen, Astronomi nesnesi, küre, dış mekan, dış uzay içeren bir resim

Yapay zeka tarafından oluşturulmuş içerik yanlış olabilir.

When did globalisation start?

Albert Park, Middlesbrough – Sundial (1876)

Around the World in Eighty Days - Wikipedia

first published in French in 1872

Amazon.com: Around the World in Eighty Days Illustrated By Tom Gill and Edited By Verral: Jules Verne: 圖書

1872

sıcak hava balonu, hava taşıtı, balon, taşımak, nakletmek içeren bir resim

Yapay zeka tarafından oluşturulmuş içerik yanlış olabilir.

80 DAYS | Nintendo Switch download software | Games | Nintendo UK

harita, dünya, Dünya, uzay, boşluk, mekan içeren bir resim

Yapay zeka tarafından oluşturulmuş içerik yanlış olabilir.

“I am a human being. I consider nothing human foreign to me.”Terence

Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto

The phrase comes from the Roman playwright Terence in his 165 BCE play Heautontimorumenos (The Self-Tormentor)

kişi, şahıs, insan yüzü, giyim, adam, insan içeren bir resim

Yapay zeka tarafından oluşturulmuş içerik yanlış olabilir.

Jeffrey SACHS

Ages of Globalization: Dates and Breakthroughs

Source: Jeffrey Sachs, Ages of Globalization, Columbia University Press, 2020, p.26

1. Paleolithic Age- great dispersal of homo sapiens (from 70.000 BCE to 10.000 BCE)

2. Neolithic revolution – farming and villages (from 10.000 BCE to 3000 BCE)

3. Equestrian Age- (from 3000 BCE to 1000 BCE)

4. Classical Age – land-based empires (from 1000 BCE to 1500 CE)

5. Ocean Age – Global empires (from 1500 to 1800)

Industrial Revolution: Definitions, Causes & Inventions - HISTORY

6. Industrial age – from 1800 to 2000

War and Peace in the Global Village by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore (Bantam) - Fonts In Use

7. Digital age –connectivity, computation, AI (from 2000 to the present)

War and peace in the global village: M. McLuhan, Quentin Fiore, 1968

Blue MarbleImage of the Earth from Apollo 17 (1972)Image Credit: NASA

We are linked in multiple ways

Biology

Climate

Art

Ideas

Business

Science

Trade

Migration

Ecology

Technology

Who makes games? Who decides what is “global”?

Where are cultural power centres located?
Who gets to tell stories?
Who is the intended global audience?

Games circulate globally, but production is uneven

Games reach players worldwide through digital distribution.
However, who gets to make the biggest games is concentrated: U.S./Canada, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, China dominate.
This shapes which stories, aesthetics, and languages become “standard.”

AAA Dominant Hubs

Emerging Hubs

Massive budgets

Lower budgets

Large teams (hundreds–thousands)

Small/indie teams

Aggressive global marketing

Limited reach

Stories designed to appeal to “everyone”

Strong local cultural identity

Huge risk tolerance due to funding

High vulnerability to market failure

Türkiye (TaleWorlds, Ankara)

India (Nodding Heads Games)

Taiwan (Red Candle Games)

“Global hits” reflect dominant cultural norms

Blockbuster games aim for universal market appeal.
Universalism often defaults to: Western perspectives, English language
Familiar visual styles and narratives rooted in dominant cultures
Minority cultures often appear only as exotic backdrops or stereotypes.

Globalised success ≠ culturally inclusive production

“Globalised success”

Not culturally inclusive because…

Fortnite

Over 400M players worldwide

Art style and cultural signals rooted in US pop culture

FIFA

Global brand, millions of players from every region

Eurocentric representation, major clubs & leagues prioritised

Open world AAA like GTA

Global sales, universal gameplay format

Narratives based on US city tropes and crime myths

EA SPORTS FC 24 Standard Edition PS4 | VideoGame | English : Amazon.co.uk: PC & Video Games

Localisation vs Co-autorship

Localisation adapts culture around a finished game, co-authorship shapes the game from within the culture.

Localisation (late-stage adaptation)

Element

Japanese Version

U.S. Localised Version

What This Shows

Setting

Tokyo-like city

“Los Angeles, USA”

America only in name, visuals stay Japanese

Legal System

Based on Japanese courts (quick trials, confession-driven)

Still presented as U.S. courts

Cultural logic unchanged

School Culture

Sailor uniforms, Japanese school design

Still shown visually

Localisation can’t erase embedded context

Food

Bento, onigiri (rice balls)

Renamed as “burgers” in dialogue

Text changed, visuals not

Names

Puns in Japanese (e.g., Naruhodo = “I see”)

Westernised puns (Phoenix Wright)

Different humour but original meanings lost

Architecture & Surroundings

Shrines, hot springs, kanji signage

Kept the same

Worldbuilding remains Japanese

Humour & References

Based on Japanese pop culture

Rewritten for American audiences

Cultural translation over adaptation

authorship means that local creators, cultural experts, and communities participate in the core creative process, not just surface elements.Culture shapes the mechanics, narrative, aesthetics, values, and the overall design logic.